Call centers may employ predictive dialers for originating telemarketing telephone calls. Predictive dialers process a list of telephone numbers and originate telephone calls for a group of agents with the goal of minimizing agents' waiting times. Predictive dialers do this by “dialing ahead,” e.g., they originate more calls than there are currently available agents. This is done based on the expectation that some calls may result in encountering a busy condition, no-answer condition, disconnected status, or answered by an answering machine or voice mail service. Such calls do not need to be connected to an agent, hence not every call made by the predictive dialer needs to be connected to an agent. Predictive dialing is also predicated on agents completing existing calls and therefore becoming available in the near future. Thus, the predictive dialer can originate more calls than there are currently available agents and maintain a likelihood that a live person, when answering the call, is connected to an agent. The goal is to have a call answered by a live person connect with minimal delay to an available agent. Ideally, the called party is connected with an agent just after they answer the call to maximize the agent's utility for communicating with the called party. Ensuring the predictive dialer functions as desired requires knowledge and/or assumptions of various aspects. For example, the predictive dialer may account for: the average hold time for a completed call, the number of agents, when an agent is expected to available, the probability of a call encountering a live called party as opposed to, e.g., the call reaching an answering machine, voice mail, a busy condition, etc. Further complicating the analysis is that some variables, such as the probability of a live person answering the call may vary based on the time of day, the location of the called party, the demographics of the called party, etc.
Developing an effective predictive dialer pacing algorithm can be challenging. In many instances, the goal of connecting calls with minimal delay is at odds with effectively using agents. For example, multiple calls may be made without having the appropriate number of agents available, but with the expectation that an agent may be available. For example, it is possible that two calls may be answered by live called parties but only one agent is available. Or, when a live called party is connected, no agents are currently available. In such situations, an agent may be available by the time the called party completes their greeting, such that the delay of connecting the called party with the next available agent may be minimal. However, the pool of agents may simply be insufficient to connect each encountered called party. This results in the predictive dialer originating a call that is answered by a live called party, but not having a live agent to connect the live called party with. In such situations the predictive dialer may terminate the call, resulting in an abandoned call, or an announcement may be played requesting the called party to wait for an agent.
The practice of a called party receiving an incoming call, answering the call, and providing a greeting only to have the calling party hang-up is considered annoying to many. In response, some federal regulations limit the occurrence of such calls for telemarketing purposes. Exceeding the limit can result in significant fines for the telemarketer originating such calls. While this can be avoided by using a pacing algorithm that ensures an agent is available for each call as it is being initiated, this may result in wasting the agent's time as a number of initiated calls encounter a busy condition, no answer condition, or answering machines. One approach to minimize the likelihood of fines is to operate the predicative dialer so that it maintains a very low average abandonment rate. However, it may be possible to operate the predictive dialer at a higher rate and still comply with applicable regulations.
Thus, a more accurate approach for pacing predictive dialers is required to ensure that call center resources are maximized, but which also complies with federal regulations regarding a maximum abandonment rate. It is with regard to this and other aspects that the present disclosure is presented.